


Aquittal

by FixOrRideDaily



Series: Until Proven Guilty [11]
Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mostly just two dudes talking, Other, Survivor Guilt, pregnancy mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-27 20:27:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10047392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FixOrRideDaily/pseuds/FixOrRideDaily
Summary: It's easier to ignore it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is really short and there is not much plot, but I like it a lot so here it is.

Maybe if the state of Chris' life over the last few years had been different the text at one am would have surprised him. He had fallen out of the habit of turning his phone off at night after everything that had happened to them up on Blackwood Pines Mountain. Ashley would often call him late at night and they sneaked out of their homes to see each other because neither of them could sleep anyway. It was the main reason behind them moving in together though if anyone knew that they didn't comment on it.

His phone made whatever goofy noise he had set it up to make when he wasn't considering that it might go off at ungodly hours. He slammed his hand out for it in reflex still mostly asleep. When he saw it was a text message from someone who's name began with an M, he immediately snatched for his glasses and sat straight up, wide awake, afraid Matt had gone off on another of his drinking binges. Once his vision adjusted he saw that the name was actually 'Mike' and that only calmed him down slightly. Mike wasn't prone to hurting himself to the point of needing hospitalization unlike both Matt and Sam, but he only reached out to Chris when things were really, really desperate. Mike didn't like to talk, except with Sam and sometimes Jess, about the things that bothered him. Chris was afraid to even open the message, but his concern and curiosity won out over his fear. 

Mike: What the fuck is wrong with me?

Chris: What do you mean? Nothing is wrong with you.

Mike: Why am I so messed up, man?

Chris: Mike, what do you mean? Talk to me.

Mike: Why do I chase them away, Chris? Why?

Chris: Are you home? Is Sam with you?

There was a long pause and Chris took this to mean Mike was debating whether or not to be truthful with him. Chris' eyes fell to Ashley who had been tossing in her sleep ever since he woke up. She'd be awake the second he got out of bed. That much was clear. Sighing he stood-up anyway and headed to his dresser to pull on a pair of socks and then a t-shirt. He tried to be quiet as he pulled on his jacket and looked for his keys and wallet, but it didn't matter she was going to wake up.

“Where are you going?” the groggy but still somehow begging voice of his wife asked.

“I'm going to find Mike,” he said looking at her. She stared up at him with her wide green eyes looking terrified but understanding. She was clutching his abandoned pillow to her chest curling herself into a ball as best she could. She looked so small and vulnerable wearing nothing but the matching top to the pajama bottoms he had on. They often wore their night clothes like that. Half on her and half on him. His eyes traveled slowly down her beautiful body to her abdomen. He felt protectiveness stab him like a knife in his chest. He knew he was being absurd, but he couldn't help it. He wanted to crawl back into their bed and hold her. He didn't want to leave her here alone, defenseless and pregnant.

“Where is Sam?” she asked at the same time as his phone went off again. She grabbed it off of the bed and handed it out to him.

“Gone,” Chris said after he looked at it and then he held the phone screen up to Ashley.

Mike: She left me.

\---

He found Mike exactly where he expected to find him: on the front steps of their old high school.

Chris parked his truck right behind Mike's fancy sports car and took his time getting out. He made sure to bring an extra coat because it was guaranteed Mike had left without putting one on. He noticed the lights of Mike's car were all on and wondered how much of a hurry the guy had been in to sit on some concrete steps that he didn't shut his lights off first. Luckily the door was unlocked so Chris took care of that for him before following the path to where the other man was sitting.

Mike sat there staring at the front of the brick building wearing nothing but his basketball shorts and a pair of flip-flops. Chris dropped the extra jacket he brought into his lap before sitting down next to him and looking at the building's large glass doors as well.

“Put that on before you catch your death of cold out here, stupid,” Chris said before shivering himself, “Why can't your pensive, I-hate-myself place be somewhere warm and comfortable, huh?”

Mike smiled a little as he pulled on Chris' coat, “Sorry, I'll run off to a day spa next time.”

“Thanks,” Chris said, “I'd appreciate it.”

Mike sighed as he and Chris stared at the front doors to the building where they'd met. Chris waited silently wondering when Mike would speak. He felt bad, but his mind kept wandering back to Ashley in their apartment tossing and turning and trying to sleep without him there to hold her through her night terrors. Chris had hated leaving her there without him before, but since he found out she was carrying his child things got much worse in that department. He'd feel worse about it if Mike was actively aware that he was there. Chris could be a plank of wood for all Mike really cared.

“I should have picked Hannah,” Mike said very suddenly. He said that often to Chris. Never to Jessica, and never to Sam. Never to anyone else to Chris' knowledge. Just him. He didn't respond.

“Emily only liked me because I was popular and everybody wanted me,” Mike continued on regardless of Chris' lack of input, “Jess only liked me cause Emily had me, and Sam only liked me because of all the stuff we went through together after Hannah and Beth died. None of them liked ME except Hannah. I should have picked her. I was such a stupid kid. I still am.”

Chris didn't comment. It didn't feel like anything he said would convince Mike any differently of what he believed to be true. Chris had known Hannah Washington well. They grew up together. She and her twin Beth were the closest thing that he had ever had to having sisters. So Chris knew that Hannah had never really liked Mike. Hannah had liked the idea of Mike, but it felt wrong to tell him that.

“How'd you get so lucky, man?” Mike asked acknowledging Chris for the first time, “How'd you get a girl to love you so completely like Ashley does?”

'Dependency isn't love' is what he wanted to tell Mike. But he didn't tell anybody that. 

“I should have been more like you when I was younger,” Mike sighed out, “Picked a nice girl like you picked Ashley. Maybe then I'd be less screwed up then I am.”

“More like me?” Chris finally answered, “Do you mean worrying too much about everyone else and their well-being to ever take care of yourself? Or following your best friend around all the time because you're a pushover with no identity or opinions of your own? Or being too afraid to ask out the girl you like for five years because even though she might as well have 'Kiss me, you big fat idiot!' written on her forehead you can't imagine you have a single good quality so why take the chance?”

Mike looked him over, “I thought this was my pity party.”

“Yeah?” Chris asked and then asserted, “Now it's mine.”

“You got to be with the girl you've always loved, you've married her at this point and you're going to have a child with her, but all you care about are the mistakes you made with Ashley in high school?” Mike asked with so much anger lacing his words he probably didn't get the hypocrisy of the statement, “Man, I should hit you.”

“Do you wanna?” Chris asked, not sure if he meant it or not.

“No,” Mike answered, “I like you too much.”

Silence fell between them as they stared at the huge building that taught them so many things that they had forgotten and helped them form so many memories that they remembered. It still looked big and Chris felt like it should look small and insignificant. He wondered why so many other people moved on so easily from high school and yet here were him and his friends stuck to it, haunted by it, controlled by it even. Had the deaths of Hannah and Beth really affected them all so much?

“She's always loved you, you know,” Mike said and Chris felt bad because he was supposed to be cheering Mike up and not the other way around, “Jess once told me she used to write your name in curvy letters all over her notebooks and she used to write dirty stories about you two in her journal. Ashley's had it bad for you from day one, Chris.”

“Yeah, I had it pretty bad for her too,” Chris laughed in a self-deprecating way. Mike actually smiled at him seemingly happy to have at least made Chris laugh. He was in a bad place. Chris should be honest with Mike.

“Listen Mike, Hannah was great and I miss her so much,” this was hard for him to say, “But be honest, you never liked her. Or if you did like her, then you didn't like her enough. She wasn't your kind of girl. Just like Ash isn't your kind of girl. If Hannah was anything it was nice. She was too innocent. And you don't like nice, innocent girls. It's not your style.”

“I like Sam,” Mike answered quietly.

“Do you... are you in love with Sam?” Chris asked cautiously.

“You know I think I am,” Mike answered sadly, “But that doesn't matter much does it?”

“Of course it matters,” Chris said quickly, “Just because you and Sam aren't together anymore doesn't mean your feelings for her suddenly don't matter.”

“It sure feels that way,” Mike answered and then he ran a hand over his face slowly. He shook his head a few times and swallowed hard. Chris wondered if he was ready to start being encouraged back to his car to head home or not because as selfish as it was he really wanted to get back to Ashley. Mike was looking at their old school like it held some secret it refused to give him though so Chris figured it might take a few more minutes.

“Sometimes I think it's my karma,” Mike said and that made Chris pay attention, “That I lose the girls I love right as I think I've figured out how much they mean to me. For what I did to Hannah.”

“Don't go down that road,” Chris tried to warn him by reaching out towards his friend but not daring yet to touch him. Mike wasn't at his most intense yet, but Chris had seen him the night he thought that Jess had died, how he had treated Josh when the women weren't around to see it. He didn't care what he said after the fact. Chris always believed Mike was going to shoot who he thought was guilty that night and he had never wavered from that belief.

“Why not?” Mike spat and it took all Chris had not to retract his hand, “It's the goddamn truth. I killed those girls, Chris. I'm a murderer! A fucking murderer! I deserve a jail cell not some ivy league degree! But nope God's got better plans for me. For old Mikey who took Hannah's heart and stomped all over it and sent her running to her death. He's gonna play with my heart until the day I die because that's what I fucking deserve.”

Chris felt heat gathering in his neck and he kept picturing his wife crying in bed without him. He wasn't sure what there was to say to that except, “That's not true, Mike.”

“Sam loved her, you know,” Mike sounded like he was trying not to cry, “And that's why God gave her to me. That way I could fall in love with her and see everyday how much I hurt her by killing Hannah. So I could see and be tortured by what I took away from her.”

“Stop it,” Chris said as gently as he could manage finding it hard to breath all of a sudden.

“Of course she'd rather be with Josh,” Mike almost yelled, “He didn't kill someone she loved. He didn't take away the most important person in her life. As fucked up as he is he isn't a goddamn murderer.”

“Ashley, stop!” Chris suddenly yelled finally grabbing Mike and forcing him to turn and look his way, “We didn't kill them! Stop saying that! Wake up!”

Mike looked at him strangely, “Chris...”

“Sorry, I can't stop thinking about...” Chris started, still gripping tightly onto Mike, “I know it's selfish of me, but she's alone and I...”

Mike was nodding like he understood and he grabbed Chris' hand with his own in solidarity.

“We didn't kill Hannah and Beth,” Chris repeated, “We did a terrible thing but we didn't kill them.”

“Yes we did, Chris,” Mike answered coldly pulling Chris' hand off his shoulder before he stood up and started walking towards their vehicles, “Go home to Ashley... since you have her to go home to.”

\---

Chris hated failure. 

And he had failed Mike terribly tonight. Maybe he was just the wrong person for the job. He knew that wasn't true or Mike wouldn't have reached out to him, but it sure felt like it was as he pulled into his buildings' parking lot. He saw a light on in his apartment meaning Ashley was awake. He sighed out very heavily. Being away from Ashley had gotten to be too much to handle and he needed to know he was good for something so he headed up towards their apartment. He took the steps two at a time and tried to remember when he did that because he simply couldn't wait to see her again. This need to be with her, this fear he had constantly for her. They didn't quite feel like love.

She was in at the kitchen counter when he came though the door. She was eating pickles straight from the jar and he had to smile because Ashley hated pickles. She'd complained more than once at this point about how “his baby” was making her eat food she didn't want. Whenever the baby did anything that stressed her out it was “his baby.” It was only “our baby” when she was in a good mood. Strangely it was never simply “her baby.” He would have expected Ashley to defy the all norms of a soon-to-be new mother, but in her way she, of course, didn't. But he liked the cliche of it all. It was very domestic. 

“Hey,” she said as soon as she saw him. Chris walked over and pulled her to him with little warning. He pressed his lips to hers in a soft kiss relived she was okay and happy that she was his. She smiled as he backed away.

“Why are you up?” he asked back stroking her face. It was an unnecessary question they both knew why she was up. He could lose himself in pretending that he and Ashley were a normal couple with normal couple problems.

“I missed your body heat,” she said capping the lid onto the pickle jar and putting it back in the fridge, “The bed is cold when you aren't in it.”

“You know that isn't actually true right?” he assured her.

“Yes it is,” she said nodding and biting the tip off of her pickle before sucking on it. He wasn't going to keep arguing with her. If Ashley said that it was true then it was true and he wondered at what point his definition of logic came to include that.

“How's Mike?” Ashley asked cautiously after taking another bite. Chris sighed out heavily because he really didn't want to talk about Mike and Sam and Josh and Hannah anymore. They took up more space in his mind than he already wanted them to. He grabbed Ashley's hand instead.

“We'll talk about it tomorrow,” he said pulling her back towards their bedroom, mesmerized by the site of her chewing and sucking on her food and licking her wet lips until she had finished eating, “Let me take you to bed. You need to sleep.”

She gave him that look she gave him when she knew he was refusing to share something big with her. Even so she allowed herself to be led back to their room by him. They crawled back into bed together. It took only a few minutes of Chris rubbing circles on her back and kissing the top of her head for her to understand that he was there and he wasn't going anywhere. She fell asleep with her head snuggled on his chest and her swollen abdomen, their child, pressed to his side.


End file.
